This article is the last of our Fun With Music - series. In four articles Tonya and I shared with you how music could be of importance for your children's development. It has been great to reflect on all of my own experiences, and I welcome you to share your ideas about the impact of music for a young child under the blog.

Today I like to share 8 ways how music can be integrated in games around the house or the classroom.

All 8 musical games have 3caracteristics:

1) They areFun

2) They createLearning possibilities

3) They Bind between a group of children, between children & parents/familymembers or between teachers

♡♡♡

Dancing is the most well known form of a Musical Gamebut there is more to show......

1. Music & Pretend Play

Imagining with children is a fabulous thing to do. There are different ways in which kids can exercise their imagination: little worlds play; recreating experiences or dressing up and becoming someone else. In the video below you see what it does to a young child to have a microphone and good music!

Or all the interactive small worlds that I've created in my workshops, you'll find them at the end of this post HERE.

2. Music & playfulness in family

I see that parents and their children bond when they play together. They connect and feel safe in each other's company and this feeling is everlasting, even when they are not together. Play and the use of Music is a great tool for having quality time in two, it gives parents the opportunity to be the natural teachers that they are.

Please Click on the picture to see a simple actvity that you can do at home.

3. Music & Body awareness

You can use music to give children an extra tool to learn about their bodyparts, they can practically dance into their body! A great and easy song to start with is 'head, shoulders, knees & toes', my favorite has been done by Super Simple Songs.

I combine the song with one of my favorite stories 'The Frog and The Heart', please listen to it HERE.

4.Music & Massage

Play has many different aspects. It can be messy, creative, moving, musically, in the outdoor OR it can be through touch. Massage of a child - baby, toddler, child - is a loving, relaxing and playful way of being together with your kid. I call it "The ‘Touch Talk’: speaking through your hands to your child's body, heart and soul".

Music plays a fundamental part in my massagesessions. It relaxes the atmosphere and adds that playful aspect that is needed while massaging older children. A famous and easy to do massage is 'Pat a Cake' - you can click here to see 'Massaging on Pat a Cake' - or 'Incy Wincy Spider'.

We've saved our empty glass bottles to do a small scientific experiment. Our bottles were of different sizes, and we used water with food colour inside. Listen to their melodies by clicking on the picture!

Peek a Boo is a great game to play and give children the experience that everything that seems to be away, can be found or come back. Besides that it's such an exciting game to play and very much loved by all children!

Music has this wonderful oppurtunity to bind a group, it's impact to bring a group of superactive kids together in a wind down moment is magical. My favorite cooling down moment is building a tower of little hands together, as shown is the picture below.

8. Music & Teachers

Sometimes I have the possibility to work with teachers and to create spaces where they can experience the power of play without being surrounded by children. The goal is to come closer to their own inner-child and to be filled with energy, fun and lots of inspiration! The secret of these workshops is for sure caused by the emotions of the songs that I use, they bring a flow of memories and good feelings.